Seven months

The stint with the first Tampa Bay area daily newspaper ended yesterday. I was touched -- my co-workers seemed genuinely sad to see me go.

I was sad to go too, I realized, though not because my seven months on the job had been perfect. Indeed, because those months were often bumpy -- with family tragedies bumping into a hectic life here -- my co-workers became symbols of stability. They also taught me about copy editing, about journalism, and about keeping one's self together in the face of stress.

I will miss them.

A word like ...

Why would you want a thesaurus when you can have a Synonym Finder?

The best place for synonyms around. I've never quite figured out what thesauri are supposed to accomplish...all the indexing, cross-referencing, antonyms...

It's useful for learning about words, but what I need as a copy editor (and what a lot of people need, I think) is a book that gives you options. As in lots of synonyms. Which the Synonym Finder does.

Buy one today. I will.

Evening jaunt

Went out and about St. Pete tonight, after finishing another riotously easy day of work.

(I suspect that's because everyone has the week off for holiday frivolities, thus all the stories are stockpiled to run until Monday. Layabouts.)

Dropped by the downtown outdoor-mall-type-thingy. Baywalk, it's called. A lot of people were clustered around a limo parked on the street. I wondered what celebrity might be inside, but then decided I would probably only be disappointed on discovering it was Charles Nelson Reilly, or someone like that.

Also drove by a coffee shop. I hear it's open at all hours. Inside, I glimpsed a throng of cool-looking people, all dressed in black. I beat a hasty retreat. I need to get my hair done and re-read my beat poets before going into that fray again.

Otherwise, things continue on. Hi there Max! I figured out what was making my blog mess up. I simply had to go back and edit and repost my last few entries. The process cleared up then.

Thus, the evening winds down. I think I may do even more laundry.

Poesy

Although the wonder that is blogger.com seems to be acting up in not posting my last couple of marvelous messages, I'll post this anyway.

So there. Here's some words to taunt you! That is, a poem. The first draft of this was written June 9, 2001. The second draft was written...well, now.

Lightning

I.

There's lightning in the faucets, child --
Shock you out of the bathtub someday,
Screaming and wailing --
"What was that?"

The walls hear right through you, little one.
No doctors or professors measure our air.
Threaded buildings unspool down our block.

II.

Rufus left one morning,
Music stuffed in his backpack,
Posing for the owls in their scholarly smocks.
I tried to follow, child,
Wading through the crowds.
Traces of light oozed away.
The days scattered through his fingers and
I tried to catch them.

Hearing laughter in the next room,
I trace onto this page
The box this summer built for me.
These shoes and friends for two months then poof --
Turn and wink, Rufus.
I'll wave back.

III.

You can't understand!
No one grasps my tender torment.
The self-pitying days
And spine-stiffening nights,
Told only in words
Folded by machine.

"That wasn't necessary"
The machine says,
Gears and cogwheels rolling on the street.
"The sun'll come out tomorrow."

IV.

Still, child --
That tune'll change your head.
Make you stay up past your bedtime,
Fending off the the world
With incantations and ziplock bags.

Big plans

Ridiculously easy day at work. I ended up editing only five pieces. The lightest load I've had for a long time on a weekday. I guess I should appreciate it.

Big plans this evening for laundry. Three loads. This is the excitement that thrills through my life with the S.O. off gallivanting around. Am also working on indexing some of my journals -- I'm within pages of finishing two of them. Around the holiday season, with the promise of some time off, I tend to spend some time categorizing my writing and attempting to generate new stuff as well.

Am looking at apartments online. I think we may want to make a move sooner rather than later. And now, it's time to zonk out a bit.

Hmm

Barney? Pure? I don't know about that.

Correspondence

An early morning missive. (In the style of an 18th century British novel.)

Dearest M --

The manor has been quiet of late, though father's experiments in the basement have terrified poor Martha. I tell her that science can only be accomplished through trial and error, but the silly girl prattles on about the poor mice interminably.

I now have only four days of work at the paper mill remaining. The work is hard, but I pray it may make me a better Christian, or at least a more astute and cunning one. The forman has been easy on me of late; knowing my intentions to leave, he has resolved to be light in his use of the whip.

You may ask, dearest M --, why, if I live in a manor do I work in a paper mill. If you ask that, you must have missed the last letter, with all the news of the frightful tragedy.

But pray do not trouble yourself, The days have mostly been light, the entertainments cheerful, and the climate exquisite. I am sure we will see one another again soon, and the necessity of these epistles will gladly slide away.

Yours always --

C ---

Back at it

I'm writing again. It's exciting. After a lengthy dry spell, interrupted only by sporadic poems, words are gushing out again. I wonder if they mean anything, but they're gushing out all the same.

This blog helped start the explosion, actually. It makes me write on a daily basis, but without the fairly rigid format dictated by a diary. Ideas began to flow and -- viola! -- words aplenty.

Mashed up

Some ramblings I scribbled last night:

Marty / Bill

Okay --

Given what I'm watching, this would be funny, right? Back to the Future somehow intersects with Naked Lunch.

Can you imagine? Marty McFly attempts to make his way through the sordid sexual & social world of the Interzone?

Too cool, daddy-o.

And would he start shooting up junk? Such decadence is out of the question for a nice middle-class boy, isn't it?

OR IS IT.

Is Martin Vesuvius McFly in truth a junky, just waiting for the next fix provided to him by the congenial yet wired DOC Emmit Brown?

God only knows what DOC has been cooking up in his underground labs and allowing Marty to test, with a pinprick of the needle and the slow ice feeling of fluid in the vein.

And Bill Burroughs -- who knows that he didn't want to ride a hoverboard?

HE'S FROM SAINT LOUIS!

People do nice and decent things there. After all, what is depravity without sufficient moralistic foundations? People have state-sanctioned postmarital sex there, and kneel at church like upstanding citizens and bite a nice big bite into a crisp autumn apple --

The same apple that
Interzone
Would have corrupted
But instead here
Is good / pure / true

Love.

Rents, buys

The rentals and purchases, as promised.

Purchased:

Back to the Future.

The complete trilogy, in one package. With more than ten hours of extra material. It's a geeky group of films, but a fun bunch. I'm pleased to own them.

Rented:

Naked Lunch

David Cronenberg's film adaptation of the resolutely surrealist William S. Burroughs book.

(Sample from Burroughs: "I can feel the heat closing in, feel them out there making their moves, setting up their devil doll stool pigeons, crooning over my spoon and dropper I throw away at Washington Square Sation, vault a turnstile and two flights down the iron staris, catch an uptown A train....")

Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back

Kevin Smith's resolutely smutty film about nothing in particular, taking up one disc of movie and one disc of extras.

Holiday tidings

Just finished sending off a round of e-cards to friends and liked ones.

I enjoy e-cards myself. You can send them much later, and write a lot more in them. You can include links to other sites, and even have Santa doing an obscene dance at the top if you want.

I don't send cards like that, of course. (I used to, but the legal bills have convinced me to do otherwise.) I go with more elegant, restrained designs. Such as Santa exploding.

This Christmas has been low key to a fault. Dropped off the S.O. at the airport in Tampa, and spent the rest of the day hanging around the house, watching DVDs, and eating chocolate. All pleasant pursuits.

I even found time to visit a video store, where I rented some intriguing films. I then visited another video store, where I bought myself a 3-DVD set on impulse. I'll detail all of these various rentals and purchases soon enough. The point is, I drove around and amused myself.

Spoke with the family on the phone. The mom sounded harried, if pleasant. The dad, bored. The sister, giggly. The grandmother, supportive. The brother, interested in talking about a possible computer purchase I'll soon make.

And such is Christmas. A day of cheer, food, and ho-ho-hoing.

Happy Christmas

Happy Christmas Eve day. At the risk of seeming trite, I'd like to quote Mr. Lennon. (At the risk of seeming even more trite, I'd like to point out that triteness is sometimes true,)

"So this is Christmas
And what have you done
Another year over
And a new one just begun

And so this is Christmas
I hope you have fun
The near and the dear ones
The old and the young

A very merry Christmas
And a happy New Year
Let's hope it's a good one
Without any fear

And so this is Christmas
(War is over)
For weak and for strong
(If you want it)
For rich and the poor ones
(War is over)
The world is so wrong
(Now)

And so Happy Christmas
(War is over)
For black and for white
(If you want it)
For yellow and red ones
(War is over)
Let's stop all the fight
(Now)

A very merry Christmas
And a happy New Year
Let's hope it's a good one
Without any fear

(Repeat chorus)

War is over
If you want it
War is over
Now"

Happy Christmas (War Is Over)
By John Lennon and Yoko Ono

Present

Received an early Christmas present yesterday -- a 3-DVD set of Young Ones episodes.

The first two disks contain the 12 shows broadcast in the program's two (and only two) seasons. The third contains a smattering of bonus material, including excerpts from a couple of documentaries and two episodes of BBC sitcoms featuring Young Ones stars in somewhat older form.

It's a very cool collection, nicely packaged by BBC video. I miss a collectible booklet, but there are four glossy postcards with it. Neato.

Back from work

Ah, work. I took a break from 7 p.m. to 8 p.m., but once I returned, there wasn't anything to do. Thus, I sat in the darn chair for two hours, doing precious little but twiddling my thumbs and making intoxicating conversation.

Well, you'll have to ask my co-workers how intoxicating the conversation truly is. They might say violently otherwise, in profoundly colorful language. I did bring them Krispy Kreme doughnut holes to win favor, but that only put them off for a bit. Soon they'll be after my blood again.

(This is, of course, a great disservice to my fellow workers, most of whom are congenial to a fault. Only a minority eat babies.)

There is a small plastic gecko in front of my keyboard. I've been playing with it on and off, twirling it by its tail. Is this really what the next four decades hold for me? Plastic geckos as I bide my time? I would hope not. At some point I will obviously become a celebrity, ink million-dollar endorsement deals, and live the life of Riley.

Until then, though, it's still the fake lizard. And the studio apartment (now sparkling clean and decorated for the holiday season, I'll have you know). And a diary I've ignored for the past couple of days.

Enough of the rambling.

Hum

Whew. Another day at work gone by, and I continue to look for auto insurance. One might ask: Can life offer me anything more? And the answer would be: Yes, but not right away.

Cleanup

Things I found the most of while cleaning yesterday:

Old receipts. They were everywhere. Why we kept them, I don't know.

Beer bottle caps. To make it worse, they look shiny and round, like money. I am thus inevitably dissapointed when I pick them up.

CD booklets. I don't mind this so much. They entertain me as I clean.

Snacks, too

Ian McKellen's monologue was funny and quite personable. Different from the bland showbizzy intros so many people give. He actually seemed to want to be on the show -- and he wasn't forced into some "ohmigod these people are interrupting my monologue" skit-within-a-skit.

Max bought some snacks for the evening. He purchased:

Vanilla Coke
Diet Lemon Coke
Diet Pepsi
Chocolate chip granola bars
Famous Amos cookies
Baked tortilla chips
and some pasta bowls for himself.

Show start

The show's about to start. The S.O. is now turning on the TV, and it's high-pitched white noise is swirling around the room.

A few seconds pass.

Now, the inane banter of the TV news anchors burbles out. The four onscreen are attempting that kind of strained conversation that makes me want to claw out my eyes.

And the show begins.

SNL incoming

A repeat of Saturday Night Live with Ian McKellen as host is scheduled for this evening. I haven't seen it. I hear it's neato.

Cleaned up the apartment and did some minimal holiday decorations this morning. It looks pleasant. And cool. And snifty.

Obviously the whole writing inspiration things is lacking a bit at the moment. I'll be with you shortly.

News links

Trent Lott is out as Senate majority leader. He didn't even wait for the Jan. 6 conference that was supposedly going to decide his future.

An account from the New York Times. (Free registration required.)

Also, Slate has posted an article about the proposals to revamp the World Trade Center site. I posted a link to a NYT story about it yesterday.

Find the Slate story here.

More Answer Guy

Ms. Murphy comments: "The College Answer Guy is now living somewhere in Florida. I'm now stationed in some wetlands outside of Miami, tracking his movements with a GPS chip I managed to implant in his skull during earlier interview sessions."

Thanks Katy. We'll keep you posted as the answer guy is tracked.

Mr. College Answer Guy

Who is the College Answer Guy? This now out-of-date article explains it all. Ms. Murphy is working on a follow-up piece, which I will post soon.

Who Is the College Answer Guy?

By Katy P. Murphy
Semi-authorized College Answer Guy biographer

You read his delightful columns in online and print forums. You thrill to his helpful and succinct advice. You salivate at the prospect of learning more about the man called “a creepy looking tramp-type person” by a focus group of newspaper readers.

But do you really know the College Answer Guy (known to some as Mr. College Answer Person)? Do you know how old he is, what his hobbies are or why he always wears sunglasses? I didn’t think so.

In the five years I’ve spent researching and writing: Answer Guy: The Complete Story of The College Answer Guy, I’ve come to know the man and his world. This article, commissioned by the answer guy himself, is meant to answer some of those questions — and promote my book.

The limitations

The College Answer Guy actually wouldn’t tell me his age, his hobbies, or why he always wears sunglasses. I tried to trace his background, but many of his personal records are missing.

Indeed, huge blank areas gape in the life of the answer guy. These black holes will become apparent in the sections that follow. But rest assured, gently dear readers, I gathered all information possible. (Buy my book to learn every fascinating tidbit! Just a sample: The College Answer Guy’s favorite ice cream flavor is pistachio!)

Where he is now

The answer guy lives in a basement apartment in Needles, California. It’s not his permanent residence — although it seems likely he has no permanent residence. Records indicated that, during the past year, Mr. College Answer Person has lived in:

A heavily fortified bunker compound in Colorado,
The tropical island of Laguna,
A luxury suite in Atlantic City,
The mean streets of Beverly Hills,
An orbiting space station and
A gutter somewhere.

His history

In preparation for my book (available now in all major bookstores!), I conducted many hours of penetrating interviews with the College Answer Guy. The following excerpt is the most he would reveal about his early years.

Katy: Tell me about your childhood.

The College Answer Guy: The College Answer Guy doesn’t care to speak of his life in a forum such as this. He far prefers to relate pertinent autobiographical information details in selected columns.

K: But surely you have something to say about your life that would enlighten your thousands upon thousands of adoring fans.

TCAG: The nuns were a great help to the College Answer Guy in his high school years. But that is all he will say. Begone, foul wench! Torment him no further with your pestering queries!

Unfortunately, my attempt to connect the College Answer Guy with nuns did not yield concrete results. I spoke with instructors at Catholic school in suburban Detroit who said they recalled a student with the annoying habit of constantly referring to himself in the third person. They could not confirm that the student was the College Answer Guy, however.

The column

Five years ago, the College Answer Guy’s column burst onto the world stage. It had a rough time. Originally distributed as a photocopied flier in small Kansas towns without colleges, the column had difficulty finding an audience. The answer guy refused to give up. He offered the column to the student newspaper at the University of Kansas. He was turned down and thrown out of the newspaper office.

Two years later, the answer person returned. He had spent the time polishing his writing skills, and selling columns for food on the streets of Minneapolis. The University Daily Kansan accepted the answer guy’s labor of love. Other student newspapers throughout the country picked up the column, and the saga began in earnest. The College Answer Person now has an estimated audience of 865,923.5 readers and a bank account with dozens of dollars in it.

The authorship question

A problematic aspect of the College Answer Person’s career is his connection with Daily Kansan staff member Clay McCuistion. The answer guy’s first columns appeared under McCuistion’s byline.

The College Answer Guy refused to address these questions in detail, denying that he knew McCuistion. When I spoke with McCuistion, he told a different tale.

Katy: How do you know the College Answer Guy?

McCuistion: I made him up. He was basically ripped off from Dave Barry’s Mr. Grammar Person character. That, and some Hunter S. Thompson.

K: Oh come now, Clay. The College Answer Guy has been writing for years and has helped multitudes. Do you expect me to believe you somehow created him out of whole cloth? Don’t be absurd!

M: But I did. I started writing the column in January of 2001. I thought it was a funny idea.

K: This interview is over, Clay. You are obviously megalomaniacal and delusional to boot.

An example for our times

The enigma that is the College Answer Guy remains. Dull-witted students claim credit for his sterling advice. Critics accuse him of creating the very questions he answers. So-called “authors” Dave Barry and Hunter S. Thompson rail against him for stealing their shtick. But he strides ever onward, dispensing freely and fearlessly his words of wisdom.

Why? Because he wants to help. The College Answer Guy puts it best: “College students live in turbulent times. People judge them unfairly. Furniture stores sell them overpriced merchandise. They deserve an advocate. They deserve a person who can offer them counsel and succor when the rest of the world claws at their toes and leaves bleeding gashes in their legs. They deserve a person who can sell them lounge chairs at cheap prices. They deserve a person who can weave together lengthy sentences that seem meaningful but are in fact conglomerations of utter nonsense.

“The College Answer Guy that person. Hallelujah!”

Katy P. Murphy’s book about the College Answer Guy is available now from major bookstores, minor bookstores and that guy you just passed on the street. Go back to him now. Ask for the book. He has it, I’m sure. Demand it. Take it from him now!

Goodness me

A fun, dirty piece about journalists and sex, posted on the Poynter Web site.

Mr. College Answer Person

Mr. College Answer Person drops by a couple of questions and answers. Who is Mr. College Answer Person? That will be answered soon. But not, unfortunately, now.

Dear MCAP: I play in a band. How can we get publicity for our upcoming show?
--Struggling to make it

Dear Struggle: Mr. College Answer Person thinks that dressing up as fire-breathing slime monsters and promising to eat live chickens on stage could attract an audience.

If that doesn't work, you could always try practicing a lot and putting up snazzy fliers.

As more people came to your shows, you could record a demonstration cassette and send it off to artist and repretoire managers at record labels. Then you might be able to find a company that would finance an album and national tour.

Nevertheless, the answer fellow doesn't claim to know what flies in the music business. He's sure that eating live chickens would get attention, though.

Dear MCAP: I don't have much money. Do you have some tips on how the average twentysomething can get by on a budget?
--Destitute and starving

Dear Destitute: Don't despair. Mr. College Answer Person feels your pain. He's used that very same pain to concoct an explanatory booklet about college budgeting, entitled "Mr. College Answer Person's Huide to Living on 15 Cents a Day."

Inside the booklet, among other pertinent info, you'll find timesaving recipes. The answer person is especially fond of his veal parmesan meal, containing only Tabasco sauce and rice. You'll eat like a king for days!

You might be asking yourself: "Mr. College Answer Person, how might I get hold of this wonderful booklet? It sounds precisely like the lifesaving information that can impact my life in festively wonderful ways."

It's the epitome of simplicity to get this compendious resource -- send $2,000 to Mr. College Answer Person, care of this Web site. He will Xerox a copy of the booklet within a couple of weeks and, if he remembers, mail it to you sometime.

Coming next

Proposals for the replacement for the World Trade Center have been unveiled in New York. The New York Times has really extensive coverage of it here.

The site requires free registration, but you'll get to see (and hear) a cool multimedia package.

Review

The Two Towers is an experience. A spectacle with a human touch, Peter Jackson's film made me laugh, shiver, and otherwise hop around in happiness.

It doesn't quite live up to the initial majesty that was The Fellowship of the Ring. But it further explores a fantasy world in a human way.

Favorite bits: A computer-animated Gollum that comes alive before our eyes. The Battle at Helm's Deep. Ents, ents, ents, ents. And a slightly less reverent tone.

See it. See it. Seeee it.

Trim

Thursday's poem. And it's in glorious, 360-degree wordsurround sound.

Trim

The man mows
The empty plot:

Patchy grass, interspersed with sand.

He drives the mower
up and down

In even marching columns

Until the vacant lot
Is neat.

Towering

The Two Towers is tonight. Anticipation and all that good stuff is in the air. Had to drive 45 minutes to buy tickets in Seminole (a town to the north of St. Petersburg).

Why? Well, the S.O. works until 9 p.m, so we need a showing after that time. That narrows the theaters available to two, and one of those would be difficult to reach in starting time. So Seminole it is. I think there's a more efficient way to get there, which I'll research before going there again.

This copy editor's weekend has been more active than I anticipated. Entries have been sparse. But much will be coming -- particularly about the movie, They Might Be Giants, and the ever-ongoing efforts to clean the slime pit of an apartment.

Perfection

Onion headline (from my page-a-day calendar).

Elton John wows Mother Teresa funeral crowd with 'The Bitch is Back'

Part two

The Two Towers, the second installment of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, is slated to debut Wednesday. The boyfriend and myself will be the audience, no doubt.

Having spent many hours with the four-DVD set of The Fellowship of the Ring, I'm primed and ready for The Two Towers. I want some Ents, dammit!

Dial-A-Song

I made the most important purchase of my life (or the last three days, at least) yesterday. That is, the two-CD set of They Might Be Giant's greatest music, titled Dial-A-Song. Songs on the first half of the first disc of the collection:

Birdhouse in Your Soul

I first heard this when I was in eighth grade. It struck me as a strange combination of bizarre lyric and poppy tune. It still strikes me that way, although I have a wider context of pop music in which to place it. It was a top-10 hit in the U.K., and it encapsulates many of the band's most appealing points.

Ana Ng

An earlier song by the group. I particularly like the double-time, clipped guitar riff during a section of the chorus.

Don't Let's Start

The group's breakthrough single, from its first album. Surprisingly straightforward, although the lyrics go in many directions.

Boss of Me

From Malcolm in the Middle, of course. I'd never heard the full-length version of this before. Full of horns, yelling choruses, and enough hooks to keep the Captain in stock for the rest of his life. The two Johns won a Grammy for this, and deservedly so. Like "Birdhouse," it shows the group at their most identifiable and personable -- although with much more guitar roar.

Older

A somber yet goofy rumination on aging. Or something.

Istanbul (Not Constantinople)

See my earlier blog entry for more info.

Doctor Worm

A real discovery. The horns are again prominent on this swinging track, which previously only appeared on the group's Severe Tire Damage live album. Apparently, the narrator of the song is, in fact, a worm. Who also plays the drums. And wants to be called a doctor. All of that doesn't matter, though, when the song hooks you like this one does.

New York City

No jokes here, really. The group didn't write this song, which extols the virtues of the city of its title. An all-girl punk/thrash ensemble came up with it, and John Flansburgh decided to make this power-pop version.

Particle Man

Perhaps too well-known. One of those songs that has permeated the culture at its edges, without much awareness of its creators. It's easy to see from this song why the group eventually made a children's album (No, just this year). On their compilation album Then: The Earlier Years, there's a recording of schoolchildren singing the tune. It works well.

Cyclops Rock

A tune from the group's most recent album, Mink Car. A loud, dissonant rock song that I find profoundly unpleasant. I also find myself humming its sneering tune quite a bit.

Minimum Wage

A near-instrumental that lasts less than a minute. Yet it's also gloriously woozy. Mmmm.

Fab

The Gore SNL episode was fab. It featured the return of Stuart Smalley, the rockin' tunes of Phish, and the comic genius of our country's former veep. Who can ask for more?

An hour to go

Wrapping things up for a Saturday evening.

Al Gore is scheduled to host Saturday Night Live in about an hour. The musical guest will be revered jamband Phish. One can only imagine the zany hijinks at the aftershow party.

Al will disappear into the Phish tour bus for about an hour, and then he'll walk around saying that everything "looks amazing" and "I never noticed how good Triscuits tasted before" and "Can we order some pizza? I mean, now?" He and Phish are no doubt already on the same page with the ecology thing.

Received a Borders gift card from my aunt and uncle. I'm looking forward to using it in evil and devious ways. That, or buying CDs. According to a story I saw in the newspaper today, gift cards and gift certificates are gaining popularity. And why not? It's a simple solution for relatives who've lost that day-to-day contact that can help to ensure a thoughtful gift.

Reading the second paragraph of this entry, I'm struck by the fact that hijinks are nearly always zany. Are there ever "normal, everyday hijinks"? I doubt it.

In other news -- The Lion King is the work of the devil. That is all.

Really?

Title of a book I walked by in the newsroom. I was coming back to this desk after buying snacks. (A Diet Pepsi and an apple danish.)

How Much Does Your Soul Weigh?

I did not add the italics.

Who's that?

Names taken from from the new Tampa telephone directory.

Heinz Hatopp
Ivion O. Meredith
Alfredo Scalise
Sybil Clarke-Bateman
M. Fuschetto
Douglas Gilcrease
Emmitt Honeycutt

Ho ho

Listen to a holiday tune from a man who knows how to make one. Go to Brian Wilson's web page for his rendition of "White Christmas," with members of Styx on backing vocals. (Yes, I was perplexed by the whole 70s-rock group thing too. But it sounds nice.) A basic rendition of the ditty, pleasantly down-to-earth.

Mr. Wilson has recorded a couple of other holiday songs for his Web site. Last year, he performed a brief snippet of "Silent Night." The year before that, he provided an original song (although one owing a lot to the Beach Boys tune "Belles of Paris") called "On Christmas Day." All of those tunes can be sampled at the site.

Start over

Decided to start over on rearranging the CD collection. Only made a little bit of progress this morning, but am pleased with the results. Instead of putting every CD and CD booklet in the same pouch, I'm separating them. The booklet is on one side of the page, the CD on the other. This means, of course, that the book can only hold half as many albums. But it also should mean fewer scratches and less book-bulging.

Words of wisdom

The song was written in the early 1950s (although it has some earlier precendents). It's covered memorably by They Might Be Giants in their seminal 1990 album Flood. Some might call it a silly, inconsequential song. I call it a searing look into the corrupted soul of mankind. Or something.

Istanbul (Not Constantinople)

Words by Jimmy Kennedy
Music by Nat Simon

Istanbul was Constantinople
Now it's Istanbul, not Constantinople
Been a long time gone, Constantinople
Now it's Turkish delight on a moonlit night

Every gal in Constantinople
Lives in Istanbul, not Constantinople
So if you've a date in Constantinople
She'll be waiting in Istanbul

Even old New York was once New Amsterdam
Why they changed it I can't say
People just liked it better that way

So take me back to Constantinople
No, you can't go back to Constantinople
Been a long time gone, Constantinople
Why did Constantinople get the works
That's nobody's business but the Turks

Even old New York was once New Amsterdam
Why they changed it I can't say
People just liked it better that way

So take me back to Constantinople
No, you can't go back to Constantinople
Been a long time gone, Constantinople
Why did Constantinople get the works
That's nobody's business but the Turks

Organized

Reorganizing my CD collection. Its been 2-3 years since the last major shuffle, and my CDs are scattered between two large CD-storage books. One is scrupulously alphabetized (I would wager I put most of it together in early 2000) and the other was hastily thrown together when I left for Florida in May. It's not arranged at all.

Thus, the task is to collate the two into a lengthy, alphabetized whole. It's detail-oriented and almost completely meaningless. Thus, it's perfect for passing away a rainy morning or two. I should have it done in a couple of days.

Fanboy alert

Keep up with your friendly U.S. Supreme court here. Justice Souter is my favorite. He's so dreamy.

Good ones

Some favorite bits from Nobody's Perfect, the Anthony Lane collection I mentioned earlier.

"All this is a way of saying that Con Air was produced by Jerry Bruckheimer. With his late partner, Don Simpson, Bruckheimer was responsible for Top Gun, Beverly Hills Cop, Crimson Tide, and a host of other quiet, Bergmanish delvings into the agon of a godless world." (p. 187)

"I had heard vile rumors that Meet Joe Black ran for almost three hours. The rumors were true, but let's be fair: what matters is not how long a film is but how long it seems, and Meet Joe Black doesn't seem like a three-hour film at all. It seems like a ten-hour film." (p. 263)

"Who is responsible for Charlie's Angels? According to the credits, it was 'directed by McG,' thus raising the intriguing prospect of the world's first motion picture to be made by a hamburger." (p. 329)

And that's just what I could find in a quick flip through the book for the express purpose of crafting this entry. I've been reading through the volume through the last couple of days, and there are many other funny, interesting, and cannily written pieces. Some of the smartest criticism I've seen, certain shortcomings of depth notwithstanding.

Change afoot

Congratulations come in from coworkers on my landing a spot at the other Tampa Bay area newspaper. It's flattering. But I feel somewhat guilty. After all, I'm leaving.

But it's nice to be recognized, in some small way. I've been here for more than six months, and after being an intern and then a not-quite-an-intern, it's good to feel accepted as part of the group, if only for a few days.

I can add some more dribbling bits of sentiment, but I'll hold off for the time being.

Calm yourselves

Rest assured: I will never use this blog to post a lengthy summary of my ideas for plot revision in Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. I wasn't overly impressed with the darn thing to begin with. I just wanted to let you know that you were all safe.

Games 'n shows

Playing Timesplitters 2. A first-person shooting game, heavy on the humor and light on the ridiculous macho posturing. Played only briefly, but took on the form of a monkey, which I enjoyed.

Also began watching 24, the much-hyped TV series starring Keifer Sutherland and taking place in real time. Well, as real as time can ever be in a filmed medium. Reminds me of High Noon, another film that supposedly takes place in real time. Of course, if you break it down (as critics with no lives have done), there's no way it actually could work. But by putting clocks onscreen often (a trick used in 24,) one builds chronological belivability.

Otherwise, am drying some clothes now and working on cleaning the grotty apartment. More updates tomorrow.

Listing

Books checked out yesterday:

The Salmon of Doubt by Douglas Adams

The last book by the author of the Hitchhiker's Guide series. Contains essays, jottings from his Web page, and 12 chapters of an unfinished novel.

The Complete Short Stories of Raymond Chandler

Chandler created the character of Phillip Marlowe and, essentially, modern mystery fiction. His writing is, to coin a phrase that's already been coined, like butter.

Nobody's Perfect by Anthony Lane

A collection of reviews and essays by the movie reviewer for the New Yorker. Witty, dry, and consistently entertaining. Not an easy task if you're reviewing Godzilla. An excerpt.

The O'Henry Winners, 2001.

Short stories receiving prizes in the prestigious contest.

The Autograph Man by Zadie Smith

A novel by the author of the acclaimed White Teeth,

Library books

Expect several entries about books in the next few days. I finally paid a long-overdue solo visit to the library, and I returned to the apartment bearing a number of books.

I've been wary of the library lately -- perhaps because I fear that going to a towns library over and over again can commit one to a place too much. After all, if I visit a Best Buy over and over and over, or a Borders, I'm assured of finding another store more or less like it in another city.

However, the events of the last week being as they are, it's now become clear that I'll be hanging around Tampa Bay for several more months/years/whatevers. It pays to buy less cand check out more.

That's what I've done. And now, to some reading.

Cleaning

Just bought one of those electrostatic sweeper things. Used it in the kitchen, and it seemed to pick up a hella lot of dust. We'll see how it does in longer-term testing, though.

Boys in blue

Came home, two police cars were parked in front of the main building of the apartment. The boys in blue don't seem to have anything to do in this complex -- there are several other apartment buildings quite close -- but it always gives one pause, doesn't it?

Strange. Police cars just make me feel guilty. I wonder if it's like that for other folks as well. I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong, but I'm sure they will find it, whatever it is.

Animated

I have a love/hate relationship with anime (that is, animated TV shows and movies produced in Japan).

On one hand, I like the way that anime owes virtually nothing to our Americanized Disney concepts of animation and what it can do. On the other, though, the animation in the shows is often very sparse and stylized. My eyes still can't get used to those technical aspects.

All of this is brought to mind by Cowboy Bebop, an anime show about a bounty hunter's adventures in the future. Rented it on a whim last night, and have been watching through it this afteroon (this being my copy editor's Saturday and all).

It's beautifully done, albeit with the shortcoming I mentioned. The sense of style is unmatched, and the music is wonderful. Kind of a jazz/delta blues/pop mix.

One of my favorite anime films, Metropolis, also shines in its use of music. The score for that is based on dixieland jazz, with an unforgettable cameo from Ray Charles. You owe it to youself to see this movie.

I'll keep you updated on Cowboy Bebop.

Compact

A few CDs I own:

Elvis Costello: The Juliet Letters
Tom Waits: Mule Variations
R.E.M.: Reveal
Brian Wilson: I Just Wasn't Made for These Times
Danny Elfman: Music For a Darkened Theater, vol. 1
Randy Newman: Faust
Bruce Springsteen: The Rising
Paul McCartney: Flaming Pie
Travis: The Man Who
The High Llamas: Hawaii

Bloggin'

A fragment of an essay I jotted down a week or two ago.

Bloggin'

A revolution, if you ask me.

Revolution is overused when connected to the Internet, I know. But the Internet has revolutionized our culture in profound ways. Everyone sends e-mail, everyone visits one Web site or another. We might not be producing millionares by the minute anymore, but people still integrate the net into their lives.

So, even if it's unfashionable to call blogs revolutionary, they are.

Journals everyone can read. That's a basic summation. But it's more. It's a universal format, better than the scattershot personal Web pages of the mid- to late-90s.

Wet

It's raining copiously outside today. The air is suffused with damp moisture.

Icky.

Synonyms

I had meant to post somthing meaningful. Instead, some selected synonyms for the word round.

Circular, cycloid, disklike, diskoid, ring-shaped, ringlike, ringed, hoop, hooplike, hooped, rotiform, annular, cylindrical, tubular (dude), spherical, sheroidal, spheroid....and so many others. Thanks, J.I. Rodale's Synonym Finder!

Poem Revision

For those of you who speak French, my poem of yesterday, rendered into your lovely language by AltaVista. My line breaks are enturely conjectural , so please don't scorn me.

Aperçu Ouside

Dans le restaurant thaï
que je ladled hors du cari rouge
sur mon lit d'astucieusement mussed le riz

(mon oeil a erré au dessus de table --
une surface en plastique.
Sous, une image de

Laborors dans un fleuve boueux.
Les éléphants éclaboussent bord à bord,
le feuillage pesant dans tout en rond.

Je demande à un travailleur,
-- Nintau, comment est le fleuve?

Il répond
-- froid, plein du dung et de la promesse.
Nous ne pouvons pas voir demain,
ainsi laissez-nous apprécient aujourd'hui.

Je souhaite seulement,
mon ami,
que je n'aie pas été emprisonné sur un tapletop.)

J'avale une bouchée,
les vents de cari vers le bas,
et je note un fourgon dehors.

Clean Up

Again tried to clean the apartment. It's always an exercise in futility, more or less, because I never have the block of time needed to make a substantial dent in the filth. Thus, the floor is cleared of major debris, clothes are shoved back in closets, etc., but the underlying cleanliness issues (the sink full of dirty dishes, the dust bunnies hopping around throughout the nooks and crannied) aren't addressed.

I do plan to wash a load of laundry tonight, which will improve some matters. Perhaps I will do other types of cleaning as well. That would be grand. Maybe.

Ms. Bainum

Meghan Bainum is one of the coolest women in the world. And I say that as someone who doesn't sleep with them.

Take a look here, here and here to see why.

AOL-ish

Finally canceled my account with America Online. I find it curious that an online service devoted to ensuring convenience makes it so difficult to cancel one's account. It seems as though AOL intentionally makes such information difficult to find, so customers have to continue paying for an online experience that is, to put it delicately, tacky and stupid.

However, I know that the good folks at AOL mean their customers no ill, and would certainly never mean to drain the finances of their unwitting customers. They probably just don't know about the problem.

It would be cynical and cruel to suggest otherwise.

A Glimpse

Poetry for a Saturday:

Glimpse Ouside

In the Thai restaurant
I ladled out red curry
Onto my bed of artfully mussed rice

(My eye wandered to the tabletop --
A plastic surface.
Underneath, a picture of

Laborors in a muddy river.
Elephants splash alongside,
The foliage weighing in all round.

I ask one laborer,
-- Nintau, how is the river?

He replies
-- Cold, full of dung and promise.
We cannot see tomorrow,
So let us enjoy today.

I only wish,
my friend,
That I wasn't trapped on a tapletop.)

I swallow a mouthful,
The curry winds down,
And I notice a van outside.

Shopping Update

Grocery shopping went fine. The final bill: $114.00. The S.O. pitched in $40. Food will fill bellies in the apartment for the next week or so. Right on.

Time to Buy

I'm going to the grocery store. Not because I want to, but out of necessity. Argh.

I'll let you know how it goes.

Hum

It's funny how things come together sometimes. That's all I have to say right now.

Updates

News items from my life, wrapped in vagueness to protect the innocent.

1.) I will be starting a new job next month, at yet another Tampa Bay area daily newspaper. I am wildly pleased to be gainfully employed. As one might expect. (Yay!)

2.) I began a new book of my diary, which now spans 11 years and 19 volumes.

3.) Saw some episodes of the early 1980s BBC show The Young Ones. Funny.

Neil!

Stumbled across this blog by a famous person, who also happens to write excellent print and graphic novels. If you haven't read anything by Neil Gaiman, get to it. His book Neverwhere is a good place to start. I'm partial to his collaboration with Terry Pratchett, titled Good Omens. And it's hard to go wrong with the Sandman series of graphic novels.

Happy reading. (Note: For a couple of years, I bought copies of Neverwhere and Good Omens as all-purpose Christmas presents. I thought I was being rather clever. I'm sure Mr. Gaiman appreciated it.)

Zzzz

This must be the most boring Web site in the world.

Editing Bits

Now it's time for the semi-annual, somewhat regular "Ramblings from a Copy Editor" feature. Today, I'll share a couple of my recent efforts in the headline-writing deapartment (Ooh! Ahh!). Here's a head I was pleased with:

A man, a plan, a decorated van

Atop a story about an elderly gent whose early 80s van was decorated with the names of his grandchildren and stickers from locations he and his wife visited. Another one, which received some comment, was:

Sweating to improve

It was a label-type headline, on a centerpiece about schools in the Tampa area that were doing poorly on the big state test (the Florida Coomprehensive Assessment Test, or FCAT) and were, as I said, sweating to improve.

Of the two headlines, I think the first is clearly the best. Several other editors commented to me about it as well. Yet my superiors mentioned the second. Curious.

Hum

Tried to clean the apartment today. Made a bit of headway, but it wasn't as exciting as last week.

E.C. Reissued

Yesterday, purchased one of the three recently reissued Elvis Costello records. The album: Mighty Like a Rose, is the 1992 opus from Mr. Costello, touching on the collapse of communism, the fragility of human relationships and the power of a well-shaped guitar solo.

The other two albums also reissued: Armed Forces and Imperial Bedroom. All are two-disk sets, the second disk in each case containing many bonus tracks to distract and entice. They are part of an ongoing reissue project from Rhino Records. The company is relasing the entire back catalogue of Costello in groups of three . . . nine past albums have now been released. At least eight remain.

And as for Ms. Benatar, all I can say is shame on you. Shame, shame, shame, shame.

Shameful

A Pat Benatar Christmas song? Pat Benatar? And not only is it by her, but it is also a patriotic concoction titled "Christmas in America"!

I have lost my faith in mankind.

Reviews

Saw Solaris.

Mind-bending, Polish and set in outer space. You know.

Was given a copy of The Professor and the Madman by a professorial friend. A nonfiction book involving the Oxford English Dictionary, insanity, and jellybeans. OK, I made up the part about jellybeans.

More to come.

Movie time

Off to see the George Clooney vehicle Solaris. I know little about it, which the S.O. thinks is a wonderful thing. I am doubtful.

Reports coming in indicate an upcoming change in employment for yours truly. I am thrilled and nervous, and also would like a soft drink. Anyway, time for the show.

Egger-riffic

Support talent. Brilliance. Whatever you care to call it. Dave Eggers, whose memior, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, is a favorite of mine, has self-published his first novel. It's called You Shall Know Our Velocity. You can buy it at the link I just provided.

He gave an interview to the New Yorker about an excerpt from the book that they published as a short story. You can find it here. Eggers combines humor, pathos and a metafictional sensibility to produce readable, important books. He's been accused of overexposure, as this Salon review says, but the talented survive such mass-media nonsense.

Trivia

Fun fact for the night: David Bowie played Pontius Pilate in Martin Scorcese's controversial The Last Temptation of Christ.

Voices

Random dialogue:

"Sometimes he just goes off on another tangent at the end."
"How could the house center on 60 acres?"
"It just sounds funny to me."
"No, we're not talking about when it was built there."
"Those were all my questions (cough, cough)."

Revision

The significant other was singularly unimpressed by the ramblings from my walk the other day. Thus, I present a different version, thanks to the AltaVista translating program. This time, I fed the basic English text into the nifty box and translated it into German, and then back into English. A simple change, but one that obviously improves the text.

(Note: The program didn't retranslate all the German into English. Thus, I've replaced the lengthy, untranslated German words with the English word "pickle.")

"Green verldt, / Pickle / zum impact stereo LKW / des sheet underfoot /, but not COMING applause of the autumn in / stage with Pickles. / graues T-shirt / Pokes of the old man under its green sweatshirt. / Sonne on my right cheek and / says ONLY indication / by the Colombian dwellings -- / Pickle park / near with row of parked car... / Buick, Plymouth in here, Doudge / "Whining is my Pickle" / Proclaims a pickle... / die new VOLKSWAGEN bug upward gradients into the Pickle / in the high Pickle and into the half pickle Pickle, pickle in / in pickle the YMCA Pickle / A NO STROLLING indication communicated where the homeless of the man sleep immer / (ist bum an only pickles? Which female is bum -- or a Tramp, even?) we along /, in order to meet the Pickle / FEDEX, SPTimes, Nintendo"

Gift and Rubbish

This blog has not helped my work life. A DSL package will be delivered to the apartment tomorrow, thank goodness. Home internet access will make updates far easier and much less hurried (as in, not always watching over my shoulder for some supervisor-type with a ruler to thwack across my knuckles).

Juan gave me a copy of the Beach Boys' Christmas Album as a gift. The group actually recorded two Christmas records, one in the 1960s and one in the 1970s. The latter wasn't released until the late '90s, when its best tracks showed up on Ultimate Christmas, an album featuring all of the BBs '60s album, an single called "Child of Winter" from the early '70s, and a few radio spots. Both the original album and Ultimate Christmas are still in print, I think.

Notes from my walk to work this morning. This was a stream-of-conciousness excercise, scrawled down as I was actually walking. Transcribed from my notebook.

Green leaves / Fountain sputtering / To the beat of a truck's stereo / Leaf underfoot / But not an autumn one. / Stadium cheers with motor whirs. / The old man's grey T-shirt / Pokes beneath his green sweatshirt. / Sun on my right cheek & / ENTER ONLY says the sign / By the Columbian apts -- / NO PARKING / Next to a row od parked cars... / Buick, Plymouth, Doudge / "Whining is my life" / Proclaims a bumper sticker... / The new VW bug slopes into the curb / Tall buildings and semi-urban rot colliding in the / Light pink YMCA building / A NO LOITERING sign posted where the homeless man always sleeps / (Is a bum only male? What's a female bum -- or a tramp, even?) / We stroll along / To meet the maker / FEDEX, SPTimes, Nintendo

Okay, okay, perhaps it's just a lot of rubbish. But it's my rubbish. And most of it is spelled correctly.

Card Carrying?

The ACLU is changing. As in, Republicans are taking part in it. The group's newfound popularity post-Sept. 11, 2001, suggests a change in the conventional dividing lines between conservative Republicans and civil libertarians. A couple of interesting articles are recently out about it.

The St. Petersburg Times has an interesting question and answer session with the Florida ACLU's treasurer.

From an Associated Press story today: WASHINGTON (AP) … Whether protecting the disenfranchised or standing up for the right to offend, the American Civil Liberties Union has sided with those claiming they were wronged, even if it meant a distinctly minority stand.

But since Sept. 11 and the government's expansive campaign of monitoring and detention, people are turning to the 82-year-old organization to help safeguard their liberties. Among them are conservatives who made the phrase "card-carrying member of the ACLU'' a political insult, but who now are signing up.

"Larger numbers of American people have realized that the ACLU is fundamentally a patriotic organization.'' executive director Anthony Romero said. There are now 330,000 dues-paying members, 50,000 of whom joined after the attacks.

Suggestion

Solomon Burke, a renowned soul and R&B vocalist, has put out a comeback album on the Fat Possum record label. It's called Don't Give Up on Me, and features new songs by Bob Dylan, Brian Wilson, Elvis Costello and Tom Waits. A CD full of dynamite music, sung by a stirring voice.

You can listen to the entire album in streaming audio here. Yet another reason why this whole Internet thing rules.

Advisory

My vote for the best frozen dinners out there? Swansons. Mmmm.

Current Schedule

Shop has closed for Saturday evening. The significant other and I may watch Saturday Night Live. Perhaps we will play a video game. We will look at Linux on the computer. We may consume caffeinated products. Or ones containing alcohol. Or both.

I will write in my diary. I have been remiss in recent entries, so I will attempt to make up for it. I will fill the pages with dramatic descriptions of the thrilling events that crowd my days. Perhaps I will play a video game in between.

Dishes may be washed. They may then be cleaned with a cloth and put away. Plastic tableware and paper plates will not be washed, or cleaned with cloths, or put away. They have already been disposed of, as is appropriate. Doubtless, at some point in the evening, I will change into sleepware (that is, a T-shirt and a pair of brightly patterned boxer shorts).

Reading could be involved. The Tampa Bay area newspaper at which I work may have published a fascinating article. I may not be able to put it down. Or perhaps I will read a months-old copy of People magazine. Or a book about common grammar mistakes. I have several. Books about grammar mistakes, not the errors themselves. (I have made many such mistakes, of course, but I do not plan on reading them tonight. That may change.)

At some point, I will doubtless sleep. As will the boyfriend. Tomorrow morning, at an unspecified time, we will wake up. We will then undertake actions appropriate for Sunday.

This is the current schedule. Plans are, as always, subject to change.

Query

To what do I owe the pleasure?

Grapes. Obviously.

The Quiet One

A tribute to George (the Quiet Beatle) Harrison was held last night at the Royal Albert Hall in London. Surviving group members Ringo Starr and Paul McCartney pitched in, as did a wide array of the musician's friends. Excellent coverage of the event from Abbeyrd's Beatles Page.

And no, this man does not look like George Harrison. Nor does this man.

Linux

Linux (the Red Hat flavor) is now installed on the computer at home. Within mere days, updates to this site will come from there. Excitement all around, I know.

Also cleaned the apartment. Not all of it, and not thoroughly, but many large objects have been moved off the floor, and a bit of sweeping has been done. I shoved clothes into closets. The usual drill. Perhaps greater cleanliness will come about this evening and tomorrow.

Christmas Tunes

Christmas music used to be a pleasure of mine. This morning, on a drive to a Home Depot to purchase mousetraps (an involved and painful story I will perhaps cover later), I tuned the car stereo into a station playing "all Christmas music all the time."

The first song they played, Elvis Presley's "Blue Christmas," while sappy, was appropriate and classic. The next song, "Home for the Holidays," upped the sweetness quotient to an uncomfortable degree. Finally, an easy-listening ballad sung by a gutless male vocalist pushed me over the edge. The song, replete with mushy string section and tinny acoustic guitars, detailed a little boy's hope for the gift of shoes on Christmas -- in memory of his dead mother. I swear. Perhaps I didn't catch all the details, but it was enough to provoke cries of outrage and slashing motions toward the "power" button on the radio.

So what happened? Why are Christmas songs so -- well -- sucky now? Is it asking too much for something upbeat and happy, even if it grazes this side of tacky? Why do we have to turn to Michael Bolton or Anne Murray as our holiday music exemplars? It's inexplicable and unlistenable. Give me "Jingle Bells" any day.

Or the Phil Spector Christmas album. Ahhhh.

Punch Out

I'm looking at a bottle of Hawaiian Punch. Its flavor is listed as "Grape Geyser." It contains:

Water
High fructose corn syrup
Concentrated juices (pineapple, grape, apple, pear and passionfruit)
Purees (papaya and guava)
Citric acid
Natural and artificial flavors
Pectin
Red #40
Blue #1
Sodium hexametaphosphate
Potassium sorbate
Sodium benzoate
Ascorbic acid

And for all of that, it still taste nothing like grapes, or grape juice. Its flavor most closely resembles that of grape chewing gum. Yummy.

Das Kapital

More information about sweatshop violations by the Gap, which happens to own Old Navy. That is, the same place I bought my comfy sweater. Ah, capitalism.

Friday Verse

Friday demands a poem. (Not to mention sacrifices to the gods, but we'll get around to those later.)

On the Run

Where did you go?
So many beautiful poems, once.

Glimmering, spilled over paper
Like a glass of red wine
On a shag carpet.
Soaked up by the paper,
Leaving a burgandy stain.

Where did they go?
So many, it seems, rejoiced around me.

They float away,
To fine tune their structures
With others, more dedicated
To nurturing them.
Tolerating frantic gestures
Of gestation.

Surely you didn't think
Big words would solve it all?

They swim away,
Hide between the onionskin pages
Of confused literary anthologies,
Where they will be safe
For the winter.

My Sweater

Purchased a sweater (made in Cambodia, according to the label) at Old Navy on Tuesday. It was $20. Indefensible, of course. I should have grown my own pesticide-free cotton, harvested it with my bare hands, spun thread, and woven the sweater whole. But time is limited.

To those in Cambodia, doubtless working in sweatshop-like conditions to produce this comfy piece of clothing I enjoy, I apologize. I will try to do better the next time.

The sweater is a deep green-gray, with a khaki stripe running horizontally across the front. The colors are ones I often wear, and it seems as though I have already owned it for years. That's how I prefer clothing. I don't like to break it in or make it my own or accustom people to seeing me in this or that. It should be me naturally, from the start.

Or perhaps I'm just rambling.

Watching, Learning

On the slightly more upbeat side of things:

Spent my weekend (a.k.a. Tuesday and Wednesday) learning about Linux. Soon, all of the computers in the apartment may be running compact operating systems based on open-source code. Viva la revolution. Or something similar.

Watched Die Another Day, the latest installment in the Bond franchise. While I thought it would be the last go around for Pierce Brosnan as Ian Fleming's superspy, Entertainment Weekly is reporting that he's signed on to do another film. As for the movie, it had gleeful fun with the ridiculous plot turns and ruthlessly silly villians one expects from a quality Bond film. Halle Berry, as an American agent, hit her marks exactly right.

Then the boyfriend forced me to watch a couple of episodes of the Avengers. I'd read about the 1960s British spy TV show and seen the awful movie, but I'd never encountered the actual program. It was quite a hoot.

Happy Happy

Driving back from the grocery store today, saw a cluster of fire trucks and police cars. A dozen or so people gathered. As I passed the group, saw a motorcycle and people kneeling around a sprawled figure. A policeman was directing traffic around the scene. And then I drove home, and I ate a Thanksgiving meal.

Let's welcome the holiday season, folks.

Off

Away for my copy editor mid-week weekend. Until then, a scarily brilliant blog. Take care.

Translated

The first two paragraphs of my essay about Florida weather, as rendered by the AltaVista translating program. The English was translated to French, the French translated to German, and the German translated back into my native tongue.

I think it's an improvement.

"As more midwesterner transplanté I find to reroute time of Florida. We here at at the end of November and change the seasons finally in the Rue Petersburg. The temperatures swim from the 80s at the soil 40s after the mood of the daily. The persistent summer mutating in the two-pole case.

"I carry the first sweater of my domicile of Florida, a number brun et gris, which rested itself calmly in a motor vehicle trunk for the five last months. Can you say of flour rope mushroom? Well you would say it regarding this sweater. It is rather obliging, although I further-ask myself, where my front arms disappeared. In the cases I assume. "

History

The history of blogs...boiled down to a few easy-to-digest links.

Rebecca Blood has one of the most chatty and personable histories. It's also a couple of years old, but you can't have everything.

A few tasty historical morsels from the man who says he has the longest-running blog.

This is a far slicker history, with further reference to Ms. Blood.

Now I should get around to reading them.

Baffled

As a transplanted midwesterner, I find Florida's weather baffling. Here we are at the end of November, and the seasons are finally changing in St. Petersburg. Temperatures fluctuate from the 80s to the low 40s, depending on the day's mood. Persistent summer is mutating into bipolar fall.

I'm wearing the first sweater of my Florida residency, a brown-and-grey number that sat quietly in a car trunk for the past five months. Can you say musty? Well, you'd say it about this sweater. It's pleasant enough, although I keep wondering where my forearms have gone. Into the sleeves, I suppose.

The apartment is going through similar adjustment problems. The small heater puts out a bit too much heat for the still-mild climate. But I risk becoming a copy editing ice block without it. (The world's new superhero -- Ice Editor! Able to correct stories with a single swipe of his frigid pen!) I've tried running both heater and air conditioner at the same time, but that just seems wrong.

So I continue shivering and sweating. Sometimes I do a bit of both. Perhaps the weather will make up its mind soon.

Can She Say That?

Good afternoon.

Political matters aren't going to be a mainstay here (I hope). There are enough people talking about the quirky state of affairs in this country already. They have reasoned opinions, etc. I just tend to get really angry, sputter for a few minutes, and then go look for some chocolate.

However, Molly Ivins has a nice recent column. Read it here. She writes about what she sees as general shift toward corporate control in government, and puts it in historical perspective. Ivins has some provocative books out, which you can buy here.

Detailed

A transitory enthusiasm detailed: Bright Eyes is an excellent indie band fronted by Conor Oberst. Their latest CD, Lifted, is a collection of soaring tunes and wrenching words. The New York Times Magazine printed an excellent article about Mr. Oberst recently. Read it here. (Free registration required to read.)

Editing Content

A friend suggested I include some copy editing content. Given my job, you know. While making such a suggestion qualifies Will for the Geek Hall of Fame, the idea isn't a bad one.

(Besides, I arrived in the hall of fame years before. I think. Perhaps I just visited its anteroom.)

My quibble tonight: the word "chitter." Have you ever heard this word used in everyday speech? I haven't. But there it was, in the lead of a story I was editing tonight. The reporter wrote that a small mammal was making noise. That noise was described as "chittering."

According to the dictionary here, that means "twittering" (as in the high-pitched cheeping of a bird) or shaking in the cold. Neither seems to describe the sound this small mammal actually made.

The animal was probably chattering. That is, making "short, indistinct sounds in rapid succession [...squirrels chatter]." (Thanks to Webster's New World Dictionary, fourth edition.) The change was made to the story, but not until I raised a ruckus, and presented the evidence I've just given to you.

Why is any of this important? The word was in the first sentence of the story, and presented a roadblock to those who might read it. "What the hey does "chitter" mean anyway?" I imagine them asking, heading for the dictionary and not reading the rest of the story. My job is to save readers that trip.

Transitory

My transitory enthusiasms (the briefest of lists):

George Harrison (New album, Brainwashed)
David Sedaris
The Onion
Metroid Prime
Animal Crossing
Bright Eyes (New album, Lifted)
Mystery Science Theater 3000
Ian McKellen
DVDs (the vaguest of vague)
The all-mighty, all-political Slate

To the Point

To the point, then, and quickly.

Name: Clay McCuistion.
Age: 24.
Height: 6'1.
Weight: 180.
Occupation: Copy editor at a daily newspaper located somewhere in the wilds of the Tampa Bay area.
Main goal in life: To complete a poem that makes sense.
Secondary goal: To get the mouse out from behind the apartment's home entertainment center.
Another random goal: To figure out what's going on.

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